Thursday, May 17, 2012

How about a little applause?

For the bloggers out there in Canada who keep posting, often to a very limited audience...who are sometimes the only ones to pay attention to a book that falls through the formidable mainstream cracks. These are blogs that focus on content. Not comment. They are about the books, fancy that, not the posturing in the comment stream, not careerist tools for positioning the author as authority. Big round of applause.

Rob McLennan is there day after day. You kind of want him to be more discriminating. You tell him, take more time, be more thorough, but that's not his gig, his gig is touching lightly and often, and pretty much everything. So here's to Rob. Steadfastly who he is.

I'm not sure who David Godkin is, but occasionally there is something insightful here, and whoever the author is, he crafts his posts well, and thoroughly. Agree or not, he makes his points.

Kerry Clare has been reviewing fiction for some time. Smart. Funny reviews. Actual thinking content. And interviews including Zoe Whittal, Jennica Harper, Heather Birrel, Alison Pick...oh wait, no men! Is that why we don't hear about her blog in the national media?

Michael Bryson has been reviewing fiction in Canada for years. Lots and lots of interviews and reviews. Tireless. Insights. I would love to see this site working with a constraint though: say everything you want to say in 500 words. Boil it down, but bravo.

Mr. Beattie I presume? We don't always agree, and sometimes his flash of rage puts his readers on the defensive, but it's worthwhile. He is a man who knows his positions and I respect that. He makes statements, backs them up. Third year of daily posts offering readings of a short story for the month of May.

Chris Banks keeps at it. He is largely interested in the quietest strands of the quiet, and many American poets that are not my cup of tea. But again, sometimes there is a point to his appreciation of a poet that illuminates me. I would love to see a larger arc in these posts (I mean overall in the blog, not the individual posts). Some frame, or constraint. This is my preference for writing that is attempting to achieve multiple goals...and who is really, really thinking about the notion of consciousness in lyric poetry? The problem I find in discussions of lyric is it quickly falls into sentiment.

So glad that you're drawing attention to these blogs. After the great blog-boom is over, there are left these sweet smokes, braiding and curling Canadians, drawing us to their smoking screens. It's good to know there's a room full of conversation out there, new work to learn about, new discussions to enter into.

Come on, Sina. The Vehicule blog does an annual top ten that ONLY features poetry collections by other presses (something no other Canadian press with a blog does) and when I'm not linking to poems published online by non-Signal poets (Damian Rogers, Alexandra Oliver) I run a Sunday Poem feature that regularly reprints poems by men (Jeffrey Donaldson) AND women (Susan Gillis). More often than not, I find these poems in books published by other presses (mostly chapbooks) And over the past year I've done posts on or about Mary Dalton, Anita Lahey, Leigh Kotsilidis, Ingrid Ruthig and Natalie Zed, not all of whom I've published. You are entitled to your opinion. It would be nice if it were informed.